The “major announcement” that Stephen Colbert promised this week has come to pass. He formally transferred his super PAC to Jon Stewart during Thursday night’s Colbert Report. In so doing, Colbert is able to enter the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, his home state. (A campaigning politician is legally prohibited from simultaneously running a super PAC.) A graphic appeared onscreen screaming, “I’m doing it!” READ FULL STORY »
Rob Schneider starred as a charmless dweeb on a show that spent 30 minutes making cheap Mexican-American jokes, culminating in the horror of seeing Rob simulating intercourse with his wife’s grandmother. READ FULL STORY »
When Mitt Romney Came to Town, a half-hour video financed by Newt Gingrich’s super PAC Winning Our Future, is a pulverizing piece of propaganda designed to portray Romney as a rapacious, conscience-less businessman who’ll do “anything for a profit,” as one of the quotes from Romney himself phrases it. Heavy on accusation and poignant interviews with unemployed people, the anti-Romney film could have been made by an Occupy Wall Street film student, or by Keith Olbermann during all the time he’s had declining to appear on Current TV. But the fact that it comes from an opponent in Romney’s own party, and lays out a line of attack the Democrats can use in the November election, raises it to high curiosity status. READ FULL STORY »
I freely admit I’m as susceptible to a good ratings ploy as anyone else. Thus were my eyeballs led to Wednesday night’s Harry’s Law, where Smallville‘s Erica Durance was to be seen wearing a Wonder Woman costume. I’d say this was worth sitting through a script co-authored by show creator David E. Kelley, but that’s really not true. Still, as a little media in-joke, at least half of the hour was almost amusing, until it became mired in soggy Kelley-isms. READ FULL STORY »
A 30-minute sitcom starring the likable Laura Prepon, based on autobiographical work by Chelsea Handler, with numerous remarks about being drunk and approximately 79 euphemisms for the word “vagina,” all of which substituted for jokes. D+ READ FULL STORY »
As the results of the New Hampshire primary vote rolled in, cable news networks had found the theme of the night. It was, roughly speaking, “What the hell was Mitt Romney thinking when he said, ‘I like to fire people’?” By 8 p.m. EST, Romney was the projected winner, with Ron Paul besting Jon Huntsman for second place. That left the pundits with lots of time to ponder the Romney psyche. READ FULL STORY »
MTV tried to edit the opening moments of the first episode of Caged so that it had a vibe familiar to its viewers: a Teen Mom aura, with a Louisiana girl named Red narrating, describing how difficult it is to be an unwed mother, a student, and the ex-girlfriend of Wes, the father of her baby. But the show is, at bottom, really about what its title implies: Cage fighting, mixed martial arts, as conducted in a Southern town. READ FULL STORY »
Warning to guests appearing on the new CBS This Morning: The “greenroom” — the traditional name for the backstage place where guests wait before appearing on camera — is a “glass room” on the new set. Don’t get caught chomping down on a bagel just because Charlie Rose is talking to Newt Gingrich — the camera may catch you in mid-bite! During the 8 a.m. hour of the CBS This Morning premiere, the camera panned away from the new set’s combination of high-tech roundtable and old-fashioned brick-and-bookshelf backdrop to reveal a transparent greenroom where the obligatory table with coffee, sweets, and fruit plate plus sofas were joined by upcoming guests Julianna Margulies and Melissa Etheridge chatting with each other. In my occasional visits to network greenrooms, the atmosphere is hushed, with guests maintaining wary distance, silently contemplating their upcoming talking-points; we’ll see how long the bigger celebs put up with an exposed view. READ FULL STORY »
For pure Sunday night escapism, PBS’ Downton Abbey exceeds the previous champion of the Lord’s Day of Rest, HBO’s Game of Thrones. There was a grungy realism to Thrones‘ sword and sorcery epic; by contrast, Abbey is, to American eyes, nearly fantastical. All the politeness that prevails, even during World War I! Mr. Carson articulated this quality early on in the second-season premiere as the downstairs help polished the silver and prepared meals for the upstairs grandees: “Keeping up standards is the only way to show the Germans that they will not beat us in the end.” READ FULL STORY »
